Earlier this year, we released the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for the ASP.NET WebForms framework. We developed these new set of innovative controls to provide a great experience when used within the Bootstrap framework. If you're not familiar with our Bootstrap controls, please take a look at these pastblogposts.

After releasing these new controls for WebForms, one of the biggest questions we got was, "What about ASP.NET Core and MVC?"

Well, I'm here to announce another great innovative web offering from DevExpress ...

ASP.NET Core...Cross platform

Version 2.0 of the new ASP.NET Core framework was recently released and I'm happy to announce our new set of controls specifically for this new framework: 'the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0'. That's the unofficial name for now.

These new controls have a new API and architecture that takes advantage of the ASP.NET Core framework. However, they do keep a similar set of features as the existing ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for WebForms.

Provide feedback

What's included?

Nearly all 20+ of the existing DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls are available in this CTP release. This includes controls like the GridView, Navigation controls, Editors, and more. However, the FormLayout, UploadControl, and the Charts are not available yet.

Also check out these projects that help you to get started:

A GitHub starter project with necessary packages and references

A Docker image that contains the GitHub starter project running on Ubuntu!

The web is about choices...

The main goal of the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core is full compatibility with Bootstrap themes. If you plan to create a Bootstrap application then use the Bootstrap Controls whether for ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET Core.

The DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls support ASP.NET MVC (3+) and ASP.NET Core (1.x and 2.0). Keep in mind that they're based on client-side JavaScript controls. If you are a JavaScript dev then you may prefer the 'DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls'. If you are a .NET dev then you may prefer 'the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core'.

What about ASP.NET MVC?

At this time, our new Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0 will not support previous versions of the ASP.NET MVC framework. That is not to say that they will never support those frameworks. We will keep an eye on your feedback and decide in the future.

Bootstrap 4 Beta

Good news, we are supporting Bootstrap 4 for our new Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0 out of the box.

Join the webinar

On Tuesday, October 24th, 2017 at 10am, I'll show you how to get started with the new DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0. You'll learn about the NuGet package(s), boilerplate project, changing Bootstrap themes, and features of the controls. We'll also cover ASP.NET Core features such as Model Binding, Data Annotations, and Unobtrusive Validation.

Is this geared towards supporting WebForms in ASP.NET Core? I am particularly concerned that we still have this "default ajax method" with the Grid control which returns the full HTML of the grid control back to the client?

We could not even use the DevExpress MVC controls in our MVC4 projects (maybe due to the fact that we absolutely need to Bind to DataTables and NOT EF objects) and finally discovered that the DevExtreme controls worked better and as expected with Razor and MVC methodologies. I would have thought that heading in this direction with Bootstrap, DX would support the DevExtremem methodology first, and then bolt on any Ajax needed for WebForms afterwards. It seems though that it's still using Ajax first, and then trying to shoe-horn into the MVC pipeline some workarounds.

What is the direction of DevExtreme? Will there be updates to it? It's currently the only toolset that "feels right" for MVC development.

These new ASP.NET Bootstrap controls have a new API and architecture that takes advantage of the ASP.NET Core framework. However, they do keep a similar set of features as the existing ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for WebForms. They're different from the DevExtreme controls because DevExtreme is client-side technology and we've wrapped them for ASP.NET MVC and Core. Both have their advantages.

Thanks for your feedback and supporting DevExpress. Please shoot me an email at mharry@devexpress.com if you'd like to discuss it in more detail.

11 October, 2017

Gosha

Are there any plans moving Spreadsheet/Reporting to ASP.NET Core?

Also do you plan having Angular version?

Thanks

11 October, 2017

Steven Olensky

These are Great!

Is there any way to call Handlers (methods) in razor pages instead of controller actions for controls that use ajax?

11 October, 2017

Vladimir (DevExpress Support)

Hi,

We have plans to release Spreadsheet, Reporting and several other products in the future. I am not sure about Angular. Our DevExtreme widgets and MVC wrappers support Angular, please refer to them if this is a major requirement for your application: https://js.devexpress.com/

@Steven

While this option is not demonstrated in the CTP version, we plan to support it our new ASP.NET Core components.

12 October, 2017

Vladimir (DevExpress Support)

@Steven,

Would you please describe your task in greater detail? Feel free to submit a ticket in our Support Center

I use the .NET Core UI widgets in http://fac2rs.com, and am thrilled with the richness of the library. Of course I look forward to seeing even more features added - especially report generation, data grid and tree list features.

The only thing that caused initial headaches was figuring our how to postpone the fetching of form data until the form is actually shown. Since I am developing a large SPA using many views, I did not want to follow you standard approach with passing the data in the model object return when creating the view )which would require all data for all views).

In the end, all it took was less than 10 lines of code!

As for the range of widgets, I could use a few extra NavBar-like widgets for switching views in my SPA. I have tried Bootstrap, but their documentation is almost useless, and I feel there is too much overlap with your widgets. In the end, I had to create my simple 'navbar' using W3.CSS - but would prefer a more advanced widget in DevExtreme.

13 October, 2017

Mehul Harry (DevExpress)

Thanks for the feedback @Lars!

20 October, 2017

Mehul Harry (DevExpress)

Thanks for the feedback @Lars!

20 October, 2017

Jan Palas 1

As of today, it seems that there is a problem using DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0 in a ASP.NET MVC Core project targeting .NET Framework. Initialization of DX controls at application startup throws an exception.